Video games are a popular form of entertainment. Today, video games and the video game industry are beginning to rival Hollywood in delivering entertainment to young and old alike.
Similar to Hollywood, the cost of generating the entertainment quality that people have grown accustomed to has escalated rapidly in recent years and therefore, it has become advantageous to seek alternative revenue streams for video games. One such alternative revenue stream is advertising revenue.
Typically, video game advertising involves presenting advertisements based upon either of two formats. The first format, Static Ads, are inserted within a game during design and do not change once the game is shipped. Thus for example, a storefront shown in a virtual environment of a video game clearly displays trademarks of an authentic storefront. Alternatively a virtual cellular phone that a gamer is able to interact with in the context of a video game features a design that mimics a design for a real cellular telephone. These non-changing, static, advertisements are used in combination with other game content to provide the virtual environment of the video game. Thus, throughout gameplay and throughout the life of the game, the advertising feature never changes. This is analogous to product placements within films.
A second type of advertisement within video games that is now achieving popularity is dynamic ad placement. In dynamic ad placement, the advertising location within the game is predetermined and an advertisement is received dynamically from a broadband network to be inserted within the advertising location within the game. In a typical application, a billboard within a video game is designated as an advertising location. Texture data is provided for mapping onto the billboard dynamically during the play of the game, and that texture is then mapped on the billboard as the billboard comes within the view of the gamer. Thus, the gamer sees the advertising content shown on the billboard within the virtual environment supported by the video game. Unfortunately, the billboard advertisement is one type of advertisement and provides only a peripheral or background impression to a player.
It would be advantageous to provide enhanced advertisements in video games.